Of course, the picture is complicated. The heavy hitting of the late-nineties has since been attributed to performance enhancing drugs and the first decade of the new century has seen a marked decrease in offensive output. Then again, drug testing began in 2003, and the strike zone was effectively expanded in 2001—both also important factors affecting batters.

In a perverse sense, warmer and wetter climates are performance enhancers brought on by man’s interference in the climate. Donner pointed to National League Most Valuable Player Ryan Braun’s recent positive drug test, which is shaking confidence in the integrity of the sport. “It’s interesting that the test that determines whether the additional testosterone in a human body is natural looks at isotopes of carbon, which is the same way we show that carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere are man-made,” he said.

But what climate change gives, it might also take away. Baseball parks are likely to have more rainouts, says Richard Stuebi, managing director of Early Stage Partners, who wrote about global warming and sports for the Cleantech Blog. “We may need more stadiums with roofs.”

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People on this board have a lot of damn gall using phrases like "global warming cult" when all anyone in the conversation is saying is that there's a preponderance of scientific evidence.

Yeah but see, on the other side of the argument, someone bought more batteries than they needed before Hurricane Irene. To make matters worse, Ray was not able to buy a loaf of bread in a leisurely fashion at the time and place of his choosing.

If you can't see why this debunks climate change...well, I just can't help you. Probably no one can.

"I remember my land, three acres of coffee, many trees – mangoes and avocados. I had
five acres of banana,’ Francis Longoli says. ‘I was given awards as a model farmer. I
had cows for milk, ten beehives, two beautiful permanent houses. My land gave me
everything from my living to my children’s education. People used to call me Omataka –
someone who owns land. Now that is no more. I am one of the poorest now.’10
Francis is among more than twenty thousand people11 who have been evicted from their
homes and land in Kiboga district, and in nearby Mubende district, to make way for NFC
plantations.

"In October 2011, the U.N. Committee on Food Security issued a report citing biofuel production as one of the leading causes of food shortages worldwide.

Ignoring its own committee’s report, the U.N. continues to endorse the two biogas plants attached to African palm plantations in the Aguan Valley as part of its controversial Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) program. A product of the Kyoto Protocol, CDMs allow governments and companies from Western countries to trade carbon credits with businesses in developing nations that utilize renewable energy and other carbon-saving techniques."

"Since January 2010, at least 45 displaced peasants have been killed in clashes over land rights in Aguan, and “the actual number of killings is probably much higher,” according to Annie Bird, co-director of the human rights advocacy group Rights Action (RA), who visited Honduras in September."

Too heavy. Wood for bats needs to be optimized between its elasticity and its weight.

Miserlou, mahogany is just a moderately hard wood, on a rough par with cherry and walnut and less hard than oak or maple. You make a bat with mahogany, it shatters the first time you skew your contact.

I understand that. Just pointing out that warm and wet does not equal soft wood.

When I was buying maple floors, the folks there told me that maple from the north is harder than maple from the south due to the growth rate. I think I've read this about Ash bats as well, but I can't cite a source.

So that's all I've got. The "global warming influences offense" thing is just for giggles anyway, since obviously other variables (strike zone, anyone?) have hugely greater effect.

So Face, are you denying there's a scientific consensus that global warming is at least partially due to human activity?

Even if that was proven 100%, that does not imply that there should be a massive reordering of the economy, directed by the gov't and super-national institutions, in response.

Hell, you haven't even gotten to the point of proving that the warming is a net harm to mankind, rather than a net benefit.

I'll stipulate that 1) the earth is warmer than it was 130 years ago, and 2)some unknown part of that is due to man (despite the fact we have no proof), if you stipulate that 3) we have no idea if this warming is harmful or not, and 4) no idea whether the costs of trying to reduce CO2 emissions are greater or less than the benefits of doing so.

To me it boils down to this: while I'm not convinced man is the primary cause of the warming we've observed* continually increasing the level of CO2 in the atmosphere forever and ever doesn't seem a particularly good idea. Just as climate and atmospheric science is too complex for us to know with any certainty that man is the problem, it's very complexity makes our screwing with it a very bad idea. We really have no idea what increasing CO2 so dramatically will do, long-term. Say we keep going and get to 1000ppm CO2. What does that atmosphere do for earth? For humans? We have no idea. Therefore, since we're actually in pretty good shape with the levels we've had, why mess with it?

I saw this on the very first page, assumed it would be completely ignored because it made too much sense, skimmed the rest of the thread to confirm, and posted here. These are fantastically complicated systems and we don't really understand how they work. What we do know is that humans, given a chance, will take what even seems like a little leeway or a little blip and drive it to the most to the most insane levels before it's literally forced to make a change, often painfully. Every it-can't-possibly-go-that-far, well yes, it always goes that far. Deficit spending, the political environment, we will take it to the very edge, for better or for worse.

We know the planet works pretty well as is. We have no idea what it will work like if we drastically change some its environmental features. We know it will be different - adjustable different, or really uncomfortable different, we have no idea. All we do know is that unless we take some steps, we will drive the system until it gets there. At which point we've rolled the dice, and we don't have a backup plan. Why not take a few prudent steps now to prevent reaching that point? Benjamin Franklin would be laughing his ass off at us.

We haven't even gotten into the whole subject of indigenous peoples being brutalized and evicted from their own land in the name of carbon credits yet.

In These Times is a nonprofit and independent newsmagazine committed to political and economic democracy and opposed to the dominance of transnational corporations and the tyranny of marketplace values over human values. In These Times is dedicated to reporting the news with the highest journalistic standards; to informing and analyzing movements for social, environmental and economic justice; and to providing an accessible forum for debate about the policies that shape our future.

Now, I'll grant that I'm definitely what most would call "left wing" in the US, but seemingly every story on this site is about:
a) how the US government is ineffective
b) how conservatives are all evil and corrupt

There's a line between "muckraking" and "partisan socialist paper." I <3 In These Times sometimes, but I wouldn't call it the best source.

"Since January 2010, at least 45 displaced peasants have been killed in clashes over land rights in Aguan, and “the actual number of killings is probably much higher,” according to Annie Bird, co-director of the human rights advocacy group Rights Action (RA), who visited Honduras in September."

This is why just protecting land in undeveloped countries does not work. It is easy to say the cost of global warming is an uninhabitable future but in undeveloped countries there is no present. If we really do want to save the rainforest, climate, endangered animals we have to make it an economical issue in the undeveloped countries. It has to be a partnership.

As to the US, I really don't believe anyone in our government cares about the environment unless it helps them get votes. There has been no urgency from anyone in the white house or congress. It does get a lot of lip service and a ton of restrictions that will have close to no long term value but nothing even close to change.

When I was buying maple floors, the folks there told me that maple from the north is harder than maple from the south due to the growth rate. I think I've read this about Ash bats as well, but I can't cite a source.

Not quite. Sugar maple doesn't grow in the south and sugar maple is harder than red or silver maple, more southern species.

There are a lot of factors that go into how hard a wood is. Porous woods like oak, for instance, are actually harder if they grow fast because the porous part of the wood represents with leafless period of growth.

We know the planet works pretty well as is. We have no idea what it will work like if we drastically change some its environmental features. We know it will be different - adjustable different, or really uncomfortable different, we have no idea. All we do know is that unless we take some steps, we will drive the system until it gets there. At which point we've rolled the dice, and we don't have a backup plan. Why not take a few prudent steps now to prevent reaching that point? Benjamin Franklin would be laughing his ass off at us.

So, why don't the AGW believers propose a massive expansion of nuclear power to replace coal and oil electricity generation?

Porous woods like oak, for instance, are actually harder if they grow fast because the porous part of the wood represents with leafless period of growth.

Not quite, it is the latewood, which occurs in the late summer before the leaves start to turn colour. Deciduous trees don't grow at all when they are leafless.

I have a forestry degree (BScF) and I don't ever recall hearing anything about regional differences in the hardness of trees of the same species. As a rule, trees that put on diameter more slowly as a result of crowding are harder that open-grown trees though, which is why old-growth wood has better structural properties than plantation wood.

So Face, are you denying there's a scientific consensus that global warming is at least partially due to human activity?

I don't doubt the existence of such a consensus, I doubt its value. All that science has truly demonstrated is that the earth's average temperature has been on a gradual increase over the past 130 years. That is science. All of the other questions that have been repeatedly raised by Bunyon and Crosbybird (among others) in this thread have not been sufficiently answered. There are plenty of hypotheses and theories, but no repeatable experiments, no verifiable predictions... no SCIENCE demonstrating them to be true and correct.

So yes, the earth has been getting warmer. And sure, it makes intuitive sense that humans burning fossil fuels is the culprit. But thousands of years ago, it made intuitive sense that thunder was caused by angry gods and lunar eclipses were caused by Night Wolf devouring Moon Virgin.

This is all part and parcel to the AGW cult.

So no one's ever died as a result of extracting and processing fossil fuels?

Sure they have, but at least at the end of the day you've got some fossil fuels to show for your suffering. What do we have to show for Francis Longoli's suffering other than a warm feeling of self-satisfaction on the part of comfortable western liberals?

People on this board have a lot of damn gall using phrases like "global warming cult"

Since the shoe fits... please do wear it.

I'm happy to double down on this. I see no reason not to call people what they are.

And the cultists haven't exactly been shy about name calling themselves. The "climate change deniers." The "anti-science" people. So it's not like the cultists have unclean hands as far as name calling goes.

Even if that was proven 100%, that does not imply that there should be a massive reordering of the economy, directed by the gov't and super-national institutions, in response.

It could, if the consequences of not reordering the economy are even more dire than the reordering.

Hell, you haven't even gotten to the point of proving that the warming is a net harm to mankind, rather than a net benefit.

There ares some undeniable trends that are extremely worrisome. To wit:

Dengue fever, common in tropical and subtropical areas of the world that are home to more than a third of the world's population, has been a rarity in the United States - until a couple of years ago.

But in 2009, dengue infection appeared in a few Florida residents who had not traveled out of the U.S., ending a 45-year absence from the United States, according to the CDC. The number of U.S. hospitalized cases of dengue infection more than tripled between 2000 and 2007, according to a study published Wednesday in the April issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases.

The Earth could see massive waves of species extinctions around the world if global warming continues unabated, according to a new study published in the scientific journal Conservation Biology.

Given its potential to damage areas far away from human habitation, the study finds that global warming represents one of the most pervasive threats to our planet's biodiversity -- in some areas rivaling and even surpassing deforestation as the main threat to biodiversity.

Last night students in the Marine Biology program at the University of Rhode Island attended a lecture called, "The State of Our Oceans," which focused on coral reefs in the ocean and how they may soon disappear due to Oceanic Acidification.Andrew Dickson, professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography which is located in La Jolla, Calif., discussed how ocean acidification affects the marine life in the oceans.

Dickson explained how an increase in carbon dioxide decreases the PH levels in water which is essential to healthy sea creatures and plants in the ocean. He said it would take tens of thousands of years to fully recover.

Harald von Witzke, chair for International Trade and Development at Berlin's Humboldt University, notes global warming will bring longer growing seasons to the world's northernmost and southernmost latitudes, thanks to increases in precipitation and atmospheric carbon dioxide. However, the decline in crop yields throughout most of the world will offset regional increases. Cline found climate change would hit poorer nations disproportionally hard, creating a 10 to 25 percent shortfall in agricultural output throughout the developing world, and nations such as India and Sudan could experience catastrophic shortfalls of up to 40 and 56 percent, respectively.

So let's see: increases in morbidity and mortality due to infectious disease, loss of species essential to a healthy biosphere, loss of ocean productivity and loss of farmland and further impoverishment of developing nations.

We saw 30 years ago that the same people were bemoaning "the cooling earth." Then when that didn't make sense any longer they moved to "global warming." Then when *that* didn't make sense any longer they moved to "climate change."

What is left, at this point? A completely stable and stagnant climate, that doesn't change at all? Is that even a good thing? A better thing? Is there precedent for it?

And if the climate did not change you can be sure these same people would be doomsaying over that. You can't trust people like this. You can only hope to stop them from harming everyone else.

So let's see: increases in morbidity and mortality due to infectious disease, loss of species essential to a healthy biosphere, loss of ocean productivity and loss of farmland and further impoverishment of developing nations.

Do any of these things seem worrisome to you?

Except for the dengue fever, those are projections of things that could happen according to some studies or models. That's not evidence. It's not even a trend.

And for the dengue fever, there's not even a link to GW in the quote!!!

I don't think any nation-state or similar entity has ever got less bang for its buck in the history of the world.

Have you been following that whole Greek financial crisis thing?

Does Greece have a trillion-dollar-a-year military that hasn't won a war in 60 years? Does Greece simultaneously have the world's largest economy and over 25% of its children living in poverty? Does Greece spend significantly more than any other country on earth in health care per capita, yet rank 46th in infant mortality and 50th in life expectancy? Does Greece have an annual trade deficit of more than half a trillion dollars?

There are plenty of hypotheses and theories, but no repeatable experiments, no verifiable predictions... no SCIENCE demonstrating them to be true and correct.

Well, this is just factually incorrect. That CO2 is a greeenhouse gas in undeniable, the evidence is so strong. And the estimates of yearly manmade CO2 release into the atmosphere are reasonably accurate, there's not much dispute of that. And there's really no dispute that at least most of the increase in yearly temperatures is due to manmade CO2. If it weren't so, the evidence wouldn't keep getting stronger and stronger, as it has for the last 30 years.

What's uncertain is how much and how fast global warming will progress. And what the full measure of implications are. But just because something is uncertain doesn't mean you should just throw your hands up in the air and do or say nothing more about it. Taking an ostrich approach is wooden-headed, to say the least.

You're arguing with this? I can't think of a truer statement. I don't think any nation-state or similar entity has ever got less bang for its buck in the history of the world.

I'm going to echo Snapper here. The federal govt is far from perfect, but it's a damn bit better at achieving its goals than most other nation-states. I'll grant that the proper comparison is to the OECD, but my impression is that the federal government is actually reasonably efficient all things considered. Things get messier at the state level (ex. Indiana discovering some huge amount of undocumented revenue about a month ago.)

climate change deniers

Ray, what else would you call yourself? I'm a Revelation-as-revealed-to-Joseph-Smith denier.

I'll stipulate that 1) the earth is warmer than it was 130 years ago, and 2)some unknown part of that is due to man (despite the fact we have no proof), if you stipulate that 3) we have no idea if this warming is harmful or not, and 4) no idea whether the costs of trying to reduce CO2 emissions are greater or less than the benefits of doing so.

Honest question wrt 3) how do you define "harmful"? Economic harm? Environmental harm? Is it a matter of "net" harm?

I can certainly see an argument where the industrial boon from the Northwest Passageway would offset much of the harm to the arctic ecosystem. Granted, I don't think that's a trade I would make.

WRT 4) I think (because science says) that we're closing in on the point where it might start to be easier and more efficient to just accept climate change and plan accordingly, rather than trying to prevent it. Accept the damage done, try to mitigate further damage, and make like Chicago and prepare for global weirding. Sound fair?

Even if that was proven 100%, that does not imply that there should be a massive reordering of the economy, directed by the gov't and super-national institutions, in response

There's a name for this sort of fallacy, though I don't know my fallacy names well enough to invoke it. It's the kind of argument-killer that goes:

"I think the Twins don't score enough runs."

"What? You want to trade everybody on the Twins? You want to tear down the freaking Target Center that cost so much to build? You want to move them to Monterrey? Not everybody agrees 100% that offense is their problem, and now you want to plow Minneapolis under ground and sow it with salt?"

The problem is that deniers tend to resist any amelioration of carbon emissions, or indeed anything else that might help things move marginally in a more prudent direction.

Does Greece have a trillion-dollar-a-year military that hasn't won a war in 60 years? Does Greece simultaneously have the world's largest economy and over 25% of its children living in poverty? Does Greece spend significantly more than any other country on earth in health care per capita, yet rank 46th in infant mortality and 50th in life expectancy? Does Greece have an annual trade deficit of more than half a trillion dollars?

Are the Greeks the world police? Do the Greeks send out billions in aid annually?

Agreed wrt wealth inequality and health care. The health care system is fairly broken, but the ACA and Ryan-Wyden seem to point to our Danish/Swiss destination.

Wealth inequality is a huge problem, and in dire need of correction. Prison disenfranchisement is another major problem (and one which is related.) So is our education system. However, we're constrained by a) The South and b) a Constitution designed to given significant latitude to states. It's unfair to call on the United States' aggregate problems without mentioning that the Union and the West Coast are doing relatively well.

I would love to see it. I would love to see a closed system model (not a computer model, a real model) in which it was demonstrated that raising the concentration of CO2 (a transparent gas, just like the nitrogen than makes up almost 80% of the atmosphere) from 0.00039% to even 0.001% could somehow have a greater effect on the model's internal temperature.

Computer models simply can't cut the mustard, because they ignore almost all of the variables other than C02, most of which (i.e. water vapour) have an admittedly much greater effect on the greenhouse effect.

Seriously, other than the tired "climate is not weather" statement, why should I believe a scientist when he says he's developed a computer model that tells me the earth's temp in 100 years, when he can't come up with a model that tells me what the temperature is going to be next month in my city? The variables affecting the former are almost infinitely more complex.

I'm against nuclear (although Thorium-based nuclear seems like a good idea), but that's only because there are many existing clean energy technologies available already that have been suppressed for decades. See Nikola Tesla, etc.

Start with something reasonable, e.g. more nuclear power (as I've said four times), R&D into cleaner technologies, etc., that won't harm the economy, and people will be there with you.

You explained this yourself on the first page of this thread. Some of the most outspoken among the global warming faithful are not really environmentalists, but rather anticapitalists looking for a new hammer to smash what they hate. They're not really interested in solutions that don't involve them gaining political and economic control.

The hilarious irony is that after your little disclaimer, you go on to offer a convoluted non-answer that demonstrates you are, in fact, taking this stuff on faith. If you (both you as an individual and the larger you of the global warming cult) can't adequately address even relatively simple questions about how the climate works (which is fine, the climate is incredibly complex), how can you have such faith that you've got the big stuff nailed down such that your church should be given control over the global economy to "fix" the problem?

The question asked was how come CO2 went up, while temps didn't for a period of time. I did explain it, you just didn't read or understand my explanation. That doesn't make it vague or it a cult.

A major reason has to do with pollution. As it turns out a bunch of those CO2 emissions came along with large particulate emissions as well. Large particles in the upper atmosphere reflect energy, while the CO2 causes the greenhouse effect. Various efforts in the past years to clean up emissions have often focused on large particulate emissions (for obvious reasons, acid rain, health issues, and so on) and so as we clean them up we actually remove one of the things that is keeping a lid on the greenhouse effect.

And

I'll stipulate that 1) the earth is warmer than it was 130 years ago, and 2)some unknown part of that is due to man (despite the fact we have no proof), if you stipulate that 3) we have no idea if this warming is harmful or not, and 4) no idea whether the costs of trying to reduce CO2 emissions are greater or less than the benefits of doing so.

Funny. You don't have to "stipulate" the first, it is a measurable fact. The second is believed by a huge percentage of experts in field - you know people who do this for a living. The fact there are some scientists trying to challenge this is OK and part of actual science. For now though the theory is pretty much accepted - whether you stipulate it or not. Not if you stuipulate that the majority of climate scientists are correct then we might be able to have a discussion.

I would like to point out that this thread is going exactly as predicited with the endless goal post movign and sprinkled Ad Hominem attacks. For those too lazy to look here is the typical progression, feel free to follow along at home and mark each anti-science post as appropriate:

• The world isn't getting warmer.
• Even if it is, it is not man made.
• Even if it is man made, there is nothing we could do about it.
• We could do something, but it would cost too much/destroy the economy.
• Even if it didn't destroy the economy, you know warming is not so bad anyway.
• Even if it were bad, climate fluctuates all the time, the earth was even warmer before, it will cycle back --- which leads to
• The world isn't really getting warmer for sure.

And yes so long as the climate change deniers refuse to acknowledge the science it is OK to claim they are anti-science. Please explain (pull quotes from my posts if needed) how anything I have said makes me part of a cult. And no beilieing what a majority of scientists state to be true is not my definition of a cult.

cult/k?lt/Noun: 1.A system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.
2.A relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister.

Some of you are selling the scientists a bit short. There is much that we know, even as laypersons:

1. We know how the earth cools itself – by radiating away heat in the infrared wavelengths. The experiment can be observed each night after the sun sets and the temperatures drop.
2. We know that certain gases have optical properties such that their transmissivity varies with wavelength. Those gases which are more opaque in the infrared than in shorter wavelengths we call “greenhouse gases”. It is relatively easy to run laboratory simulations of the atmospheric optical properties as concentrations of these gases are increased. These have been run, and unsurprisingly, the greenhouse effect is present.
3. We know that the concentrations of greenhouse gases are increasing in the atmosphere due to human activity.
4. We see general correlation in global average temperatures. This doesn’t appear as a linear increase, but looks more like a long-period oscillation about an equilibrium temperature, with the equilibrium temperature gradually rising. Like a low-amplitude sine wave tilted at an upward angle, for a simple visual, which might appear as long periods of seeming stability interspersed with steep increases.
5. We also, if we have a bit more scientific training, understand that weather and climate and ocean currents and solar dynamics are all governed by, and must be simulated by, non-linear differential equations. These are not the clean, solvable, linear diff eqs we were solving as engineering underclassmen. They cannot be solved other than via brute-force computer simulation; the graphical representations of the resulting equilibria are so non-intuitive that they are given the name “strange attractors.” As such, initial assumptions in the computer models – the initial conditions, the boundary values, etc. – can have significant effect on results. So, depending on assumptions, one can run models that show little effect of human activity, or you can get results that lead to extradited shipments of malaria medication to Edmonton. The ones between these extremes show an effect.
6. In short, we have a plausible, credible theory correlating roughly with observed data. It is not proof, nor will it be. Our political debate does not reflect this.

I talk to people all the time who have a strong opinion about global warming, but are unable to provide me even a high-school level description of the greenhouse effect. Some of them even tell me there is no such thing – apparently greenhouses don’t actually work, thus I could not have eaten those Brussels sprouts.

You explained this yourself on the first page of this thread. Some of the most outspoken among the global warming faithful are not really environmentalists, but rather anticapitalists looking for a new hammer to smash what they hate. They're not really interested in solutions that don't involve them gaining political and economic control.

I know. I'm addressing those who are reasonable concerned citizens, not the ideologues. The ideologues can't be reasoned with any more than marxists could.

A rational person who thought CO2 emissions were bad, and didn't have an economic agenda would say:

1) Tax CO2 emissions
2) Use that revenue to reduce other taxes so the net effect on the economy was neutral
3) If other countries won't reduce their CO2 emissions (e.g. China) place tariffs on their good and services equal to what the US CO2 tax would be if it were produced the same way here.
4) Subsidize technologies that reduce CO2 emissions, e.g. nuclear power

There's a name for this sort of fallacy, though I don't know my fallacy names well enough to invoke it.

Misleading vividness?

I think you're mischaracterizing at least some of the people that disagree with you. I have no problem with government action to address potential GW issues; in fact, I think it's one of the appropriate areas for government to act. I have a problem with insisting that there is an imminent disaster in order to justify extreme policy.

I am in favor of taking reasonable steps to move in the right direction. I don't deny that there is an issue, but merely that the issue is so serious that the planet is unquestionably doomed without immediate and drastic remediation.

why should I believe a scientist when he says he's developed a computer model that tells me the earth's temp in 100 years, when he can't come up with a model that tells me what the temperature is going to be next month in my city?

Which of the following projection models would you think is more likely to be useful:

A) Projects Albert Pujol’s OPS for the upcoming season.
B) Projects the outcome of an Albert Pujols at bat in the 5th inning next Tuesday.

The question asked was how come CO2 went up, while temps didn't for a period of time. I did explain it, you just didn't read or understand my explanation. That doesn't make it vague or it a cult.

You offered an explanation, but you provided no evidence that your explanation was the truth. Telling a small child that rain is caused by god's tears is an explanation, and is about as useful as the one you provided. If you had a shred of humility, you could have simply answered "I don't know, and neither do scientists." It'd have the added benefit of being true, but since that would have caused you crippling cognitive dissonance, "If we can't understand and explain something so minor and insignificant, how can we hope to get people to believe the glorious truth that we really understand what the climate will do centuries from now?" you wound up offering a lame rationalization. But you're totally not in a cult!

I would like to point out that this thread is going exactly as predicited with the endless goal post movign and sprinkled Ad Hominem attacks. For those too lazy to look here is the typical progression, feel free to follow along at home and mark each anti-science post as appropriate:

Apparently demanding evidence is "anti-science" nowadays.

And yes so long as the climate change deniers refuse to acknowledge the science it is OK to claim they are anti-science. Please explain (pull quotes from my posts if needed) how anything I have said makes me part of a cult. And no beilieing what a majority of scientists state to be true is not my definition of a cult.

If you're upset by the notion that you've joined a cult, you should try leaving the cult. But unfortunately, you've swallowed an entire bolus of beliefs and corollaries to those beliefs, based upon no actual scientific evidence other than the fact the global average temperature has increased over the past 130 years. I'm not surprised it's giving you indigestion.

I am ambivilant on Nuclear Power. Because of construction, mining, and so forth it turns out to not be a carbon friendly as it would appear,

Is Nuclear a zero for C02? No. But it is very close, esp compared to oil, coal, natural gas. We have an answer to our problems right before us, Nuclear, probably the greatest discovery in mankind, but the left treats it like it is off the table, like it is a red headed step child. Like it would be a FOUL!! "If we use that!".

If the left were so honest about the imminent danger they claim C02/Global Warming is for man, they wouldn't be utter pus$ies about Nuclear. They remind me of a spoiled child where their parents keep returning xmas gifts until junior gets his pony.

The laws of physics dictate that Nuclear is the only solution to meeting our energy needs with carbon free energy in our lifetimes. "Alternative" energy, wind and solar, the two biggest, lack the energy density to allow us to produce the power we need. The materials just aren't there, solar has a weak energy density and the materials we currently use are relatively near a theoretical heat density maximum....which is the sun.

It is physics. We are limited to Nuclear. It has to be at least 90% of our energy, "alternative", would struggle to exceed 10%, 20% max.....there isn't enough land for that.

For those who are concerned about AGW, do you agree with posts like 284 suggesting that asking questions about the actual impact of climate change is anti-science?

If we were to somehow determine with total confidence that the global temperature would increase 4 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century, it seems to me that asking what that would mean in terms of tangible impact on human life would be the the relevant follow-up. Is that not so? Is asking that question really anti-science?

I'm not as worried about CO2 as I am about wasting all of that extremely useful petroleum primarily for transportation purposes, but this is about where I come down.

Yeah, this is a big thing too. Burn up all the petroleum and you're looking at steel laptops or granite ipods.

This is an interesting subject. Nobody truly knows how oil is created. There are two, maybe three theories. I happen to lean in the direction that oil is constantly being created/recreated. That's not a fringe theory, in fact it's probably accepted by most by now. The question could be, how quickly is it being recreated and are we using it up to quickly or is the earth having no problem keeping up with our usage?

Is Nuclear a zero for C02? No. But it is very close, esp compared to oil, coal, natural gas. We have an answer to our problems right before us, Nuclear, probably the greatest discovery in mankind, but the left treats it like it is off the table, like it is a red headed step child. Like it would be a FOUL!! "If we use that!".

If the left were so honest about the imminent danger they claim C02/Global Warming is for man, they wouldn't be utter pus$ies about Nuclear. They remind me of a spoiled child where their parents keep returning xmas gifts until junior gets his pony.

The laws of physics dictate that Nuclear is the only solution to meeting our energy needs with carbon free energy in our lifetimes. "Alternative" energy, wind and solar, the two biggest, lack the energy density to allow us to produce the power we need. The materials just aren't there, solar has a weak energy density and the materials we currently use are relatively near a theoretical heat density maximum....which is the sun.

It is physics. We are limited to Nuclear. It has to be at least 90% of our energy, "alternative", would struggle to exceed 10%, 20% max.....there isn't enough land for that.

I've said this at least 4 times already, and no one has really responded.

The environmentalists on this point are like a man who comes up to you claiming to be starving and asking for $5, and when you offer him a bologna sandwich instead, he says he doesn't like bologna.

I understand using provacative terms like "cultist" for effect, to get attention via exaggeration, to communicate alarm etc., but to double-down on the word and pretend to be using it otherwise (like in posts 249 & 267) is a credibility shredder.

Okay, Closeup of Lasordas Bunyon is on board with nuclear. He is no pus$y.

I'd like to see some more curiosity from everyone, esp liberals in nuclear science. I find it is primarily liberals that have a dim view of the science of nuclear tech and the prospects of continued advancement. They, dare I say, are anti-science when it comes to nuclear.

- the climate is always changing (see Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age for examples in the last millennium)
- CO2 is not pollution
- biodiversity and productivity increases as you move from poles to the Equator
- plants (i.e. crops that feed us) grow better as CO2 increases

This certainly isn't indisputable, but I would argue that there is now more money behind the pro-AGW side than the other. The warmists continuing to insinuate that us "deniers" are funded by oil companies is like the pot calling the kettle black.

Just in case you're curious about the opinion of a grossly uninformed liberal (I guess I'd count as liberal. It's not really a term I'm used to using in discussions of politics)

- I don't really go out of my way to inform myself about climate change, but whenever I do, such as in threads like this the "believer" side seems to make the most sense

- I'm even less informed about nuclear power, but my inclination is positive

I know a few people who are anti-nuclear, though they are awfully fringey. The most prominent anti-nuke person I know has a dedication on her production company's website dedicating all her work to mother earth, so I probably wouldn't dispute a characterization of her as anti-science. I guess the anti-climate change people don't usually make lot of sense to me because they appear to be arguing against radical environmentalists. As noted above I know a couple, so they certainly exist. But are they really that influential?

Nothing has really changed in the measuring system, but there has been more "measurers" in the satellite era. The first meto satellite was launched in 1960. I'd say that the graph is pretty accurate since 1970.

It is true we use a ton of satellite data today for studying climate, etc.. I should remind people that 40 year sample is only meaningful if you think the Earth is 8,000 years old.

Shock, all you've really done to this point is fall back on "the consensus opinion of the scientific community," and declared that anyone who doesn't swallow this "consensus opinion" whole is a moron.

I don't find that position very interesting to talk about.

I agree with Ray on this. Shock, can you at least tell us what makes sense to you about this that puts you on the side of the "consensus"?? I hope you are able to think for yourself. We all manage to disagree with Tony LaRussa from time to time and last time I looked none of us are going to the HOF.

Is Nuclear a zero for C02? No. But it is very close, esp compared to oil, coal, natural gas. We have an answer to our problems right before us, Nuclear, probably the greatest discovery in mankind, but the left treats it like it is off the table, like it is a red headed step child. Like it would be a FOUL!! "If we use that!".

Well, the main problems with nuclear are:
1) What if there is a meltdown?
2) How to dispose of waste?

These cause environmental hazards. Granted, I support nuclear tech so long as it's done thoughtfully, but for the life of me, I don't understand why clean energy (geothermal, solar, wind, hydro) is poo-poo'd off the bat. There is no waste, the source is totally renewable, and used in concert, most of our energy needs would be met. Yes, the Gore plan.

Yes. That law was an abomination. CFL is 1950s tech. It's a joke. It is an environmental bio hazard and I spared with many liberal friends that tried to downplay the step back in time.

LEDs are way more efficient, higher quality lighting, safer, last longer, more durable and temp resistant. When our government banned incandescent, and handpicked picked CFLs by name in the bill, it just delayed the growth of LEDs a little. It was a great example of congress not having a fricking clue about tech.

Frankly, incandescent lights, much older than CFL tech, are still quality, good light, built correctly, they can last a long time.....and the heat they give off actually warms a room, which is a positive in cold climates.

If you assume the danger of global climate change, and you agree that it's a fact that GCC is due in large part to the burning of fossil fuels, what other explanation for the lack of nuclear facilities could there be?

From an American perspective, an aversion to nuclear power has been a staple of the Democratic party for at least the last 30 plus years. And GCC has done very little to slow it down. It's bizarre on many levels and I'd love to believe the anti-nuke things is fringey, but it's hard to square that with the reality of nuclear energy in the US. Yes, there are concerns- although "waste" really isn't one of them- and people will die because of nuclear energy. Just as they do with any energy generating efforts. But it's the clear choice of the future for a variety of reasons. And yet...

This certainly isn't indisputable, but I would argue that there is now more money behind the pro-AGW side than the other. The warmists continuing to insinuate that us "deniers" are funded by oil companies is like the pot calling the kettle black.

They don't want people defaulting to the most wasteful and energy-inefficient option. Seems perfectly reasonable.

This is the scariest quote on this thread. Dude is more than pleased with the decision of the government to ban the most common lightbulb in the world. I live in a building with a "reduced flow" shower, some government moron that knows nothing about the water cycle, decided I needed fewer gallons per minute hitting my head. Now I have to take a shower that is twice as long.

It was like I was camping or in a third world, until I ripped off the shower head and fixed my own. This is ####### America still for christ sakes.

This is a really bad answer snapper. The reality is those issues do exist- at least the first one does- and you, as a nuclear advocate, have to concede that and acknowledge that it's a big deal. Because it is a big deal. Containment vessels will not prevent nuclear meltdowns- they will happen under any scenario no matter how diligent we are at preventing them.

I suspect you know that, but the point is that blithely ignoring legitimate concerns- as you did there- is a lousy way to push for something. Particularly something important.

And this thread does a great job of illustrating of that precise problem.

... other than that attendant to capitalism's "creative destruction." That, they applaud. Places like Flint and Detroit, Michigan changing from centers of manufacturing to ghost towns in the span of a generation -- change they can believe in.

No it isn't. Oil companies' armies are more powerful than the UN's too.

I didn't realize the UN had armies.

The UN, the IMF, the BIS and the World Bank are all incestuously intertwined. I think its fair to say that between them, they have more clout than the oil industry (I'm pretending for the moment that Big Oil isn't part of that incestuous relationship).

... other than that attendant to capitalism's "creative destruction." That, they applaud. Places like Flint and Detroit, Michigan changing from centers of manufacturing to ghost towns in the span of a generation -- change they can believe in.

Environmental regulations and unions....hello!

No. Free trade with countries that has no labour or environmental standards.

Does Greece spend significantly more than any other country on earth in health care per capita, yet rank 46th in infant mortality and 50th in life expectancy?

USA is one of the best countries on Earth for child birth.
You have to understand how infant mortality statistics are calculated differently across nations, and they are. Nobody brings more pre-term babies to age 1 than the US.

Not quite, it is the latewood, which occurs in the late summer before the leaves start to turn colour. Deciduous trees don't grow at all when they are leafless.

I have a forestry degree (BScF) and I don't ever recall hearing anything about regional differences in the hardness of trees of the same species. As a rule, trees that put on diameter more slowly as a result of crowding are harder that open-grown trees though, which is why old-growth wood has better structural properties than plantation wood.

All pretty much on target, though I'd add "consistent modest growth rate" to the structural properties comment. This is especially true for very high value products like hardwood veneer and red spruce "tone wood" (used for piano sounding boards, violin bellies, etc.) I'd only demur on the blanket statement concerning plantation (or any rapidly growing) wood vs long rotation trees, as the 5-needle pines don't seem much affected by this. (My BS is forest mgmt, UMaine 12/1975. Worked in forestry ever since.)

It is not the case that we have only 100-150 years of data. Data from coral growth, tree rings, stalagmite sedimentation, and other sources shows that this is the warmest period of the last 1000 years.

Ice core data shows that there have a been a couple of moments in the history of the species in which temperatures have been about this high - three periods in the last few hundred thousand years - each of which is linked to an ice age and can be explained as a result of orbital effect. The current warm / warming period cannot be explained by orbital forcing - instead, the best explanation is CO2 forcing. We can see from both models and retrospective data that CO2 does drive climatic warming, and we have certain data from the ice cores that CO2 is running far higher than ever before (about double its height at the peak of ice age carbon cycles). This warming trend is extreme, comparable to data reaching back many thousands of years, and it is best explained by CO2 forcing, since CO2 is running far higher than ever before and the orbital forcing that produces ice age cycles is not currently producing this extreme warming trend.

Well, the main problems with nuclear are:
1) What if there is a meltdown?
2) How to dispose of waste?

These cause environmental hazards. Granted, I support nuclear tech so long as it's done thoughtfully, but for the life of me, I don't understand why clean energy (geothermal, solar, wind, hydro) is poo-poo'd off the bat. There is no waste, the source is totally renewable, and used in concert, most of our energy needs would be met. Yes, the Gore plan.

tl;dr: nuke is fine, but why not consider actual clean tech first?

If I was Shocker, I'd call you anti-science for thinking Nuclear technology is not advancing and the day will come where there will be little issue with waste. I laugh though, about worries about waste.....I'm being told the world is going to end with man-made global warming, yet we are going to not save man kind because nuclear waste? Something we have handled fine for decades. And something that science will possibly eliminate in time.

As for "clean" energy. Solar and wind, I stated above that the laws of physics essentially limit either solar and wind to ever....supply most of our power. In theory, you can build hundreds of trillions of windmills, but you would never accomplish that. Further, wind can't be your base power, now the way the grid works.

Solar, we are already somewhat close to heat density maxim for the materials that make up solar panels. With that limit in place, we won't be increasing the energy density much anytime soon.

People need to know this, because they think magically wind and solar can produce all the energy we need, not the case. Solar has the same problem with the grid as wind. Only nuclear or coal are good baseline fuels for electricity.

10-20% is reasonable long, long term....but that's about it.

Short of the Tesla ideas, all of the energy sources are on the table and only nuclear can meet our energy demands without hardly any C02 production.

I'm being totally serious when I say that the best place for nuclear waste is outer space.

Actually, that's the best part. We could, like the rest of the world, dump almost all of our nuclear waste in France. What real American could possibly object?

The waste issue is greatly overstated for reasons touched on in this (not entirely accurate) article. While the article isn't perfect, it explains some of the factors that substantially reduce the waste concern. And it doesn't get into more recent advancements in vitrification, amongst other things, that make the problem even less of a concern.

The reality is that waste is a manageable problem. It remains a legitimate concern, but not something that should reasonably preclude the utilization of nuclear energy. And that's before you add AGW into the equation, which should make the issue a no-brainer. At the same time, I'm always open to shooting random stuff into space. I'd happily sign us up for a space-waste rocket if it were up to me.

Incidentally Snapper, if you're really curious you may want to look at the paper by Barnola, Raynaud, Korotkevich and Lorius on the Vostok ics cores -- specifically as it relates to CO2 levels.

The upshot is that with ~160k years to work with they find: (warning, short summary of complex paper. If you want to argue the point, read the damned paper and argue the points as made by the authors not with my summary)

A) CO2 levels are cyclically variable (with cycles in the general range of 21k years)
B) There's a strong correlation between the Antarctic climate and those CO2 levels.

If this is such a crisis, there won't be a surplus of liberals crying about nuclear.

This is such a poor argument, I don't really know what to say. The extent of the climate crisis is a scientific and objective question, it has nothing to do with hypocrisy. We have warming unprecedented over 1000 years, we have CO2 levels unprecedented in known history (100s of thousands of years), we have evidence of CO2 as a forcing agent for global warming - the evidence for anthopogenic global warming is extremely strong, and the collection of better and better data over the last 20 years has created a real consensus among working scientists due to the quality of this information and the explanations for the warming trend.

Man, it would be so great if everything LionoftheSenate says was true. The world would face no systemic threats from anything, the free market would take care of everything, we could be as selfish as we want in whatever style we want forever, and our only problems would be caused by the faddish enthusiasms of the laughably stupid communist vegan feminist atheists that somehow end up controlling the government every now and then and screw things up before the noble geniuses like Reagan and Gingrich get voted back in and make everything nice again.

If this is such a crisis, there won't be a surplus of liberals crying about nuclear...They are anti-science when it comes to nuclear, among a list of other things.

There isn't. Most of the environmental groups are on board for nuclear now. The main objection with the remaining liberals is waste storage, the chance of a nuclear accident and the ability of countries that don't have nuclear weapons to leverage their expertise in civilian usage to develop them.

The problems associated with all three of these concerns have already been realized.

I also disagree vehemently that nuclear energy is our only way out of the coming energy crisis. There are myriad technologies that either haven't been developed yet or are still in their infancy.